


Axe/Avox

by damndonnergirls



Series: The Past is Prologue/The Future is Open [3]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Banners & Icons, Codependency, Cover Art, Drug Addiction, Embedded Images, F/M, jorius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damndonnergirls/pseuds/damndonnergirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In District Thirteen, Johanna searches for morphling and finds a familiar redheaded man with mismatched eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Axe/Avox

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on Tumblr on 1 December 2014, then published on FFN on 15 January 2015 as part of the collection/series entitled "The Future is Open".

  


_District Thirteen_

 

I don't realize how much it hurts _(she's becoming an addict)_ until they take the morphling away _(save it for the Mockingjay)_.

When they do, the pain hits me like a brick wall. Like a log falling in the forest _("TIMBER!")_ and crushing my bones like they're no more than twigs. It's white hot and searing, and it feels like betrayal. _(Pain, thou heartless bitch. I thought we were friends.)_

All those years after my Games, pain was my one constant companion. _(They can't hurt me.)_ I welcomed the pain. _(I'm not like the rest of you.)_ I loved the pain.  _(There's no one left I love.)_

All those years after my Games, it never hurt as much as this. My skin crawls and burns. It's as if I'm being tortured all over again, soaked, shivering, my teeth chattering. _(Kill me now. I dare you.)_ Phantoms of electric shocks strong enough to stun me and subdue me, but not strong enough to force a confession out of me. Not strong enough to kill me. _(You can't kill me. Nobody can kill me.)_

Despite the pain, I smile. _(Believe me, I've tried.)_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

I don't ask for more morphling _(why bother)_. I don't kick, or scream, or put up a stink _(they wouldn't give it to me anyway)_. I do what I do best: pretend to be weak _(I'm so hungry)_ , docile _(I'm so tired)_ , or as weak and docile as I can be without raising suspicion, because everyone who has seen my Games knows how I won.

Then, when the District Thirteen sheeple aren't looking, I steal drugs from Katniss Everdeen.

But I know Brainless needs the morphling, too _(make the pain stop)_ , so one day I get up and poke around the other patients' beds to find another supply _(make the pain stop)_.

I strike out once _(Peeta's under lock and key)_ , twice _(Annie didn't need any)_ , but third time's the charm and my persistence is soon rewarded.

The morphling flows through my veins, but it's nothing like the electric currents of my nightmares. It hits me and I'm suffused with warmth and blissful numbness. _(I am a void. I am a black hole. I am nothing. Nothing can hurt nothing.)_

A stranger's pale fingers wrap around my wrist, and I'm not too far gone that the sudden contact doesn't make me jump.

I look down at the patient in the bed. Into a pair of mismatched green and hazel eyes.

It's him.

His face is bruised and gaunt, and the rest of him is skin, bones, scars. But I would know those eyes anywhere, and although his hair has fallen out in clumps, it's growing back exactly how it used to be: thick, red, as if his head was on fire.

_(It's him.)_

Katniss and Peeta's Avox.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

He opens his mouth, and the sound that comes out is strangled, feral, but familiar.

He makes the sound again, and somehow I understand what he's trying to say: _it's okay._

He makes room for me on the bed just as my legs turn to jelly.

The next day, I come back, and the clipboard hanging at the foot of his bed tells me his name. _(Darius.)_

He becomes part of my routine. _(Darius.)_ Every morning, when I get my schedule printed on my forearm, I look down and half-expect to see him there.  _(Darius.)_ At _18:00–Reflection_ , I sit on the edge of his bed and help myself to his morphling. He doesn't seem to mind. _(Darius.)_

I don't touch him, except when I take off the drip, and when I put it back on.

He doesn't touch me.

He doesn't touch me, he can't talk, he lets me have his drugs.

I come to the conclusion that he is my favorite human being.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

This is what happens when I'm on morphling.

The pain disappears _(here is peace)_ , District Thirteen recedes _(here is calm)_ , the universe as I know it falls away _(here I float in the womb of sweet oblivion)_.

My mind projects images onto the backs of my eyelids: the forests of Seven, trees reaching up to the sky, threads of morning light finding their way through the canopy. My nostrils fill with the scent of pine, my father chopping firewood, my mother making apple cider. My skin prickles from the cold, from a late autumn breeze laced with winter chill.

My older brother is there. _(Paul.)_

My little sister is there. _(Branwen.)_

Finnick, Annie, Katniss, Peeta.

Darius is there, too.

But the feeling doesn't last _(it never lasts)_ and I'm left clawing at the air, trying to hold on to the visions as if they were real, as if they weren't fleeting and ephemeral like the illusion they call happiness and the lie they call love.

The mist clears, and everything hits me all at once.

I think of everyone I had to deceive, everyone I had to kill, tributes begging for mercy, Peacekeepers, Capitol pigs pawing at me.

I think of what I did to win my Games, what I did to escape Finnick's fate, everything that happened before, after, in between.

_(Every heartbreak is a victory.)_

I think of the song for fallen friends and comrades, the song the lumberjacks sang as they lowered my parents into their graves.

I think of Paul, left for dead in the wood chipper, his murder conveniently blamed on an inconvenient rabble-rouser.

I think of Branwen, withering away, bright red blood staining her ashen lips. I think of the medicine that could have saved her, the medicine I refused to accept from the Capitol. Even if she lived, she would never be safe. For as long as the world was the way it was, we would never be free.

_(The more I hurt, the less power they have over me.)_

I open my eyes. I see Darius, and I remember how the Peacekeepers dragged him past my cell to Peeta's. The way he howled, guttural and unintelligible, like a trapped animal, a wretched creature that knows there's no way out.

I see Darius as he is now, so stoic and silent and still. Surviving, in spite of everything. If he had a voice, what would he say? What other demons were there in his head, for the morphling to chase away?

_(If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?)_

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

The infamous cousin catches me.

Gale Hawthorne moves so quietly _(like smoke)_ , so stealthily _(like Katniss with her bow)_ that I don't hear or see him coming. I blink once and he's there.

"I need to discuss something with Darius," Gale tells me, frowning. "You should be in your own bed."

"What is this, some Hot Guy Support Group?" I grumble, but I slink off anyway. I don't want him to rat me out to the hospital staff or to Katniss.

I try to eavesdrop on their conversation, but there's no point. They're writing everything down.

I catch Gale by the sleeve before he leaves. His shirt is dull gray and synthetic. _(Like everything else in this goddamned place.)_

"How do you know him?" I ask.

Gale doesn't seem like the trusting type, but he takes one look at my scars and the baby-soft down growing on my head _(like fucking badges of honor)_ and he answers. "I knew him back in Twelve. He was a Peacekeeper assigned there."

My blood runs cold. The revelation that Darius was once a Peacekeeper renders me speechless for a moment, but I press on before Gale takes my silence as permission to leave. "Why'd they Avox him?"

"He... he looked out for me and Katniss."

I have more questions than answers, but I sense Gale's patience is wearing thin, so I stick to the basics. "Why was he rescued? He's not a victor." The idea of Darius, or Gale, as a victor _(like Finnick)_ makes me sick.

"You don't have to be a victor to be a rebel," Gale says, and I must have touched a nerve because he walks away without another word.

The next time I see Darius, he pushes a pad of paper at me before I can even hook up my IV.

His penmanship is like a child's _(like he's learning how to hold a pencil all over again)_ , but the message is clear.

 _Gale loves my sister,_ it says. _We're looking for her._

"The other Avox?" I say without thinking. There had been a girl, with hair even redder than his.

His face falls and I curse myself. Of course it's not the other Avox. The other Avox is dead. She didn't even last the first night, after they were brought to Peeta's cell. I wonder if Darius loved her.

 _That was Lavinia,_ he writes. _My sister's name is Madge._

Madge. The name rings a bell, but it takes me a few moments to recall the willowy blonde from last year's District Twelve interviews.

But… wasn't she the mayor's daughter?

Darius flips to the next page on his pad. At first I think he's going to tell me more about Madge, but instead he asks a question that's as juvenile as his handwriting.

_You think I'm hot?_

I scowl. "Don't flatter yourself," I tell him, feeling my cheeks heat up. "I say that about every guy who lets me have his morphling."

He erases part of the question mark, turning it into a period. _You think I'm hot._

I give him the finger and leave.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

That evening, Katniss and I go to Finnick and Annie's wedding.

There's a lump in my throat as I watch them standing there, their shoulders draped in a net that they wove together. There's none of the flowery, Capitol-style poetry that Finnick used to spew in front of the cameras; their vows are simple and heartfelt, and the words to District Four's wedding song is older than Panem itself. _(Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it.)_

There's a lump in my throat as I watch them standing there, touching salt water to each other's lips before they kiss. _(I've known them for so long.)_ For all my misgivings about love, suddenly I'm overwhelmed by the desire to protect Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta at all costs, to defend them until my dying breath. _(We've all been through so much.)_ Suddenly I'm overwhelmed by the fear that one day they would have children, precious little things created from the best of Finnick and Annie combined, innocent children who might suffer the way their parents did. _(They deserve so much better.)_ Suddenly I'm overwhelmed by the desperate need to kill Snow, to free Panem, to end the Games forever.

I make up my mind, right then and there, that I will do everything in my power to get better, faster, so I can fight on the front lines where I belong.

_(The rebellion cannot fail. The Capitol cannot win.)_

Satisfied with my decision, I turn back to the festivities. The refugees from Twelve are trying to teach everyone the dances of their district. I push Brainless into the fray myself, because until this war is over, there is no sweeter revenge than showing Snow that he hasn't broken her. Katniss hesitates for a second, but soon she's linking arms and kicking up her feet with Prim, and I marvel at this rare sighting of a smiling Mockingjay.

As for me, I stay on the sidelines. I cheer, and clap my hands, and laugh my head off at the gorgeous giant of a cousin being put to shame by the tough, tiny old woman they call Sae. But when the tempo slows down and Finnick pulls Annie into a tender embrace, I find myself scanning the crowd for a familiar face.

Darius finds me before I find him.

It's been a long time since I've seen him on his feet. _(He's taller than I remember.)_ It's been a long time since I've seen him wear anything that wasn't a hospital gown, and somehow Thirteen's standard-issue shirt doesn't look so drab when it's not tucked in. _(Or maybe it's just him.)_

Under the soft focus of the dim lights, it's easy to mistake Darius for a man healthy and whole, instead of an Avox tortured almost to the point of death not too long ago.

He can't speak, but then again he doesn't need to ask. "Sure, I'll dance with you," I say, raising my voice so he can hear me over the music. "I dance with every guy who lets me have his morphling."

He grins, and scratches the side of his nose, and there's a twinkle in his eyes that suggests he has a wicked comeback in mind for me.

_(Paul would like him.)_

Knowing he can't retaliate, I seize the opportunity. "You're always so tongue-tied around me," I tease him, my hands flying to his shoulders as his hands come to rest on my waist. "Admit it. _You_ think _I'm_ hot."

_(Branwen would like him.)_

He raises one eyebrow and scrunches the opposite side of his face into an overly exaggerated expression of comical indecision. His lower lip sticks out slightly as if to say, _maybe_.

And _maybe_ it's because I've conditioned myself to expect morphling whenever Darius is there, but his presence soothes and comforts me, and it's like his touch has some sort of healing ability.

_(I… )_

Without thinking, I bury my face in the crook of his neck, and he responds by tugging on my arms until my elbows are propped up on his shoulders and my wrists are crossed behind his head.

_(I like him.)_

And _maybe_ it's because I've conditioned myself to expect crashing lows after the soaring highs, but all of a sudden the floodgates are open and my chest is heaving with sobs there on the dance floor, while three hundred people celebrate around me.

My tears spill out like water from a spile, but they're too salty to drink, and the puddle _(becomes a pool)_ becomes the sea _(becomes the ocean)_. I'm in the arena again and I'm drowning, Katniss and Peeta are drowning, even Finnick is drowning. There is _lightning_ and _electricity_ and my body seizes up and blood spurts from my mouth and Snow tells me he can make the pain go away and I say _over my dead body_.

Darius cuts through my terror and puts his hands on either side of my face. He makes a noise, something between a grunt and a hum. Somewhere between a lashing and a lullaby.

_(If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?)_

I don't know what possesses me, but I surge up and kiss him on the lips. I kiss him and I think, _how fucked up is it_ that I have never felt pleasure without pain, joy without fear. I kiss him and I think, _for once_ I want to love without counting down the days until the people I love die.

_(If I fall)_

He kisses me back. He doesn't have a tongue, but he takes little sips of my lips. He strokes my back softly, carefully, his fingers leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. He holds me close, so very close, and he holds on long after I stop trembling.

_(If he doesn't make a sound)_

We lose ourselves in each other, two bruised, scarred, broken things.

As we cling to each other, I come to the conclusion that Darius is more than my favorite human being. He is morphling incarnate, my addiction come to life. He is in my blood, under my skin, and I know I'll never get enough of him.

_(If I fall, and he doesn't make a sound, were we ever here?)_

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a healthy relationship at the moment, but in my head things do get better.
> 
> The "many waters" quote is from the Old Testament, specifically Song of Solomon 8:7.
> 
> The rest of my [Jorius](http://damndonnergirls.tumblr.com/tagged/jorius) fics and edits are archived on [FFN](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/3997265/#_=_), [Tumblr](http://damndonnergirls.tumblr.com/start), and [Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/damndonnergirls). I'm slowly starting to cross-post to AO3.
> 
> My fancast for Darius in the banner (and in general) is [model Ken Bek](http://damndonnergirls.tumblr.com/tagged/ken-bek-as-darius).


End file.
